Kraken Ventures Raises $65M for Early-Stage Crypto Fund

Kraken Ventures raised $65 million for its first fund, which will invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and tech startups.

Kraken Ventures (whose largest liquidity provider is Kraken, the fourth-largest crypto exchange by volume) in February launched an independent fund led by its former head of corporate development Brandon Gath.
The new fund currently holds positions in the blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon, digital asset platform Anchorage and crypto database provider Messari and more, Kraken said Friday.
Kraken Ventures said it will invest in financial infrastructure, Web 3, decentralized finance (DeFi), consumer crypto protocols, artificial intelligenc, and machine learning startups. The fund will target initial investments in the $500,000 to $2 million range.
“Our focus now is to put that money to work and help some of the most innovative projects and their exceptionally talented founders accelerate the development of their companies and protocols,” Gath said.
The Texas-based fund also expanded its team in Europe with the appointment of Laurens De Poorter as head of European operations. Before joining the fund, De Poorter worked at Dawn Capital overseeing early-stage investments in enterprise software and fintech companies

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